Stephen Arnold Douglas (1813–61), the deceased U.S. senator from Illinois for whom Patrick Connor named his new post outside . Douglas was Connor’s political hero but either a maladroit or deliberatively provocative choice for namesake in view of his status as former chief political rival to President Lincoln and bête noire to since his June 12, 1857, “loathsome ulcer” speech in Springfield at the beginning of the War. (Library of Congress) Chapter 10

Kenneth L. Alford and William P. MacKinnon

What’s in a Name? the establishment of Camp Douglas

Since my arrival the people of the Territory have been treated kindly and courteously by both my officers and men, who have never given one of them cause for complaint, which the people freely acknowledge. But notwithstanding this, the courtesy we have given is returned with abuse. —Colonel Patrick Edward Connor, U.S. Army March 15, 18631

amp Douglas is the only military installa- Ba ckground Ction in the sited purposely Brigham Young and his Latter-day Saint so that soldiers could keep a watchful eye on pioneers first arrived in the Salt Lake Valley the American citizens outside its gates. The in July 1847. Folklore has it that Young said establishment and naming of this post on at that time, “If the United States will now the bench above Salt Lake City is a colorful, let this people alone for ten years to come, but little known, story of the American Civil we will ask no odds of them or any one else War. Utah is generally viewed as a backwater but God.”2 In 1857, exactly ten years later, of the Civil War, but events in the territory President James Buchanan moved to replace played an important supporting role and Brigham Young as Utah’s first governor and were surprisingly laced with conflict. While organized an expeditionary force of several Camp Douglas (later renamed ) thousand soldiers to escort his successor experienced a long and colorful history that to Utah while restoring federal authority has continued into the twenty-first century, in a territory perceived as rebellious. After this essay focuses on the short period between harassment of the approaching army by the the camp’s founding in October 1862 and the territorial , the evacuation of northern end of the Civil War. Utah, discussions between Brigham Young 162 Kenneth L. Alford and William P. MacKinnon

and federal peace commissioners, and the which for three years past has resounded issuance of a blanket presidential pardon with the orgies of the ungodly and become for Utah’s entire population, the conflict was a nest for every unclean thing, has reverted settled peaceably with Brigadier Gen- to its wonted quietude and simplicity. Some- eral Albert Sidney Johnston’s forces marching times I regret that I never visited it; yet at quietly through Salt Lake City in June 1858.3 other times I feel grateful that I have kept The soldiers then established Camp Floyd myself entirely aloof from Gentile influences (named after John B. Floyd, President Buchan- and associations.”8 an’s secretary of war) forty miles southwest While some residents celebrated the post’s of Salt Lake City, the nation’s largest garrison closing, others questioned the wisdom of the until the outbreak of the Civil War.4 Civilian decision. A Times writer predicted relations with Camp Floyd were sometimes that “the removal of the small force from Utah strained, but they resulted in economic ben- will prove a fatal blunder, as it will leave the efits for many Utah residents. Camp Floyd great overland routes to and Ore- was renamed Fort Crittenden,5 in honor of gon unprotected, and invite aggression both U.S. senator John J. Crittenden, after Secretary from lawless and hostile Indians.”9 Floyd resigned in disgrace in December 1860 When increased Indian activity and attacks and joined the Confederacy. The camp’s dis- along the Overland Trail followed the with- tance from Salt Lake City was probably viewed drawal of soldiers from Fort Crittenden, it favorably by most of the city’s residents. soon became apparent that military action was In 1861, when the first shots in the Civil required to protect the trail. Brigham Young War were fired, Utah found itself at a stra- and territorial federal officials suggested that tegic crossroads—mail, telegraph lines, gold “a regiment of mounted men be raised”10 to from California, silver from the newly cre- protect the mail, emigration, and telegraph ated Nevada Territory’s Comstock Lode, and routes. The government initially rejected emigrants all needed to pass freely through their offer “because it is not supposed so large , but regular U.S. troops were a force is necessary.”11 On April 28, 1862, needed in the East far more than they were though, by “express direction of the Presi- required at Fort Crittenden. In May 1861, dent of the United States,” Brigham Young, the War Department “issued orders for the then a private citizen but still President of the immediate withdrawal of all the regular LDS Church, was authorized to “raise, arm, troops from New-Mexico and Utah.”6 Auc- and equip one company of cavalry for ninety tions held in June and July disposed of reus- days’ service.”12 The government’s request able building materials (lumber, windows, specified that “the company will be employed doors, and so forth), and the remaining adobe to protect the property of the telegraph and walls were left to the elements.7 Fort Critten- overland mail companies in or about Inde- den was evacuated and closed. The soldiers pendence Rock [], where garrisoned there marched east during July. depredations have been committed, and will One Salt Lake resident’s August 1861 letter be continued in service only till the U.S. summed up the feelings of many Utah resi- troops can reach the point where they are so dents: “The troops are gone. Camp Floyd, much needed. . . . It will not be employed for the establishment of Camp Douglas 163

any offensive operations other than may grow out of the duty hereinbefore assigned to it.”13 The requested soldiers mustered within two days, an extraordinary feat of orga- nization. Under the command of Captain Lot Smith, who had won fame as a militia major during the , the company of about a hundred men left Salt Lake City in early May 1862 for three months of active duty military service. In late August 1862, after this volunteer company had returned to Utah, Union General James Craig, who was responsible for the overland mail and telegraph lines from the Missouri River to Utah Territory, telegraphed Secretary of War

Stanton and requested either reinforcements Patrick Edward Connor, the Irish-born commander of California from the States or permission to “re-enlist the Volunteers who established Camp Douglas in October 1862 while Utah troops for a limited time.”14 Secretary incurring the enmity of Brigham Young in a way that Albert Sidney Johnston had not. After the of Janu- Stanton answered the following day, “You are ary 1863, the army promoted Connor from colonel to brigadier authorized to raise 100 mounted men in the and in 1865 made him a major general in part to encourage his resignation after his controversial Powder River campaign. He mountains and re-enlist the Utah troops for remained in Utah to stimulate an inflow of non-Mormons moti- three months as requested.”15 After confer- vated by mining opportunities. (Utah State Historical Society) ring with Brigham Young, Utah’s Governor Harding informed the army that reenlistment the vicinity of Salt Lake.” According to orders of Lot Smith’s company was not possible received in July 1862, his primary mission as because, as Harding cryptically phrased it, a newly commissioned colonel was “to pro- “Things are not right.”16 Consequently, federal tect the Overland Mail Route”18 and “also military leaders determined that dispatching the telegraph stations.”19 Connor’s command volunteer units from California would be a arrived at Fort Churchill (near Reno, Nevada more permanent military solution to the need Territory) in August 1862, where Colonel Con- to protect commerce and emigration along nor assumed command of the military district the Overland Trail. The state of California of Utah, which included Utah and Nevada was asked to recruit sixteen thousand volun- Territories.20 teers, some of whom would be sent to Utah.17 In May 1862, Brigadier General George E stablishment Wright, commander of the army’s Department of Camp Douglas of the Pacific in San Francisco, appointed Utah residents had done too good of a ­Patrick Edward Connor, a California militia job dismantling Fort Crittenden after the officer, to command several companies of Cal- army blew up its magazines and marched ifornia volunteers (or CVs, as they were often east. Nearly everything of value had been called) to travel from Stockton, Califor­ nia, “to removed. Little did they know that the army 164 Kenneth L. Alford and William P. MacKinnon

A prime mission of Connor’s California Volunteers was to protect from Indian attack the transcontinental telegraph line, completed in Salt Lake City exactly a year before their arrival there. Although they tried to destroy the line, the tribes (and others) marveled at the way it worked as depicted in Henry Farney’s classic 1904 painting, The Song of the Talking Wire. (Wikimedia Commons) would return in strength at the end of the fol- the west, there was great concern. A New York lowing year, and the poor condition of Fort Times report from Salt Lake stated, “There Crittenden would influence the selection of may be still another jurisdiction conflict in the army’s new encampment elsewhere. our midst, and perhaps a very pretty quar- In the fall of 1862, Colonel Connor trav- rel. . . . Let us hope for the best, particularly eled in advance of the army to the Salt Lake in the present juncture of affairs, and that Valley from Fort Ruby, Nevada Territory, in peaceable counsels will prevail.”22 order to select a route and scout out the best After visiting the former Fort Crittenden, site for a military camp near the city. Wearing Colonel Connor reported to his superiors civilian clothing, he “took a stroll about town several reasons for not reopening it. First, the and looked around with an air of familiar- camp was “in ruins” except for a few build- ity that indicated that after all Salt Lake City ings (for which the owner wanted $15,000). was something of a place, and might not be Second, most of the few remaining buildings unpleasant notwithstanding its desert sur- “would have to be torn down and removed.” rounding.”21 Apparently during this recon- Third, “the post is badly located.” His fourth, naissance, Connor met with neither Governor and most important, reason was that “I found Stephen Harding nor former governor Young. another location, which I like better.” That When word reached Utah that the army site was “on a plateau about three miles from would soon be returning, but this time from Salt Lake City; in the vicinity of good timber the establishment of Camp Douglas 165 and saw-mills, and at a point where hay, grain, and other pro- duce can be purchased cheaper than at Fort Crittenden.” Colonel Connor also revealed an addi- tional unofficial rationale for the new location—keeping an eye on the Mormons. Connor reported to his superior that the site he selected was “a point which com- mands the city, and where 1,000 troops would be more efficient than 3,000 on the other side of the Jordan [River]. If the general decides that I shall locate there, Connor’s first notification to army headquarters that he had established Camp I intend to quietly intrench my Douglas. Here it is clear that the siting and naming of the post were solely his deci- position, and then say to the sion. Seeking a site within artillery range of Brigham Young’s Lion House—soon a widely-believed myth—was not part of Connor’s stated rationale. Saints of Utah, enough of your (Cornell University Library) treason; but if it is intended that I shall merely protect the overland mail and and formed two lines in front of Governor permit the Mormons to act and utter treason, ­Harding’s residence. After being introduced then I had as well locate at Crittenden. The by Colonel Connor, the governor addressed Federal [civilian] officers desire and beg that the troops. While standing in a carriage, he I will locate near the city.”23 confessed to the soldiers, “I have been disap- On October 1, 1862, a few days prior pointed, somewhat, in your coming to this to entering the Salt Lake Valley with his city,” and noted somewhat disapprovingly soldiers, Colonel Connor reported that “the that the federal government “knows not the people of Utah are under the impression spirit of the officers who represent it in this that I am to winter at Fort Crittenden.”24 He Territory.”27 Accordingly, he finished by telling also informed his superiors that he had been them, “I do not know now what disposition is “credibly informed by letter this morning that to be made of you, but I suppose you will be the flag-staff at Fort Crittenden was cut down encamped somewhere, I know not where, but since my visit and hauled away by Brigham’s within a short distance of this city. I believe the orders.”25 Connor quite likely viewed this as people you have now come amongst will not an affront to federal authority and a misuse of disturb you if you do not disturb them.”28 government property.26 Colonel Connor and his mixed command Namn i g Camp Douglas (five infantry and two cavalry companies) Following the governor’s speech, the bivouacked at Fort Crittenden on ­October 17, California soldiers marched to the base of 1862, and marched into Salt Lake City the mountains east of the city “between Red on October 22, 1862. The soldiers halted But[t]e and Emmigration Kanyons [sic].”29 On 166 Kenneth L. Alford and William P. MacKinnon

Tensions between Salt Lake City and Camp Douglas began almost immediately and were possibly fueled by Connor’s deci- sion to name the new post as he did. The military correspondence for the fall of 1862 clearly indicates that the choice of names was Connor’s—he dubbed the post Camp Douglas rather than being directed to do so by General George Wright in California or by an even higher authority in Wash- ington. In fact, Wright did not even know at this point that Connor was establishing a new post, having assumed that he would be using the remnants of old Camp Floyd in distant Cedar Valley. So why would Colonel Connor—a man patently on the rise with even higher military aspirations—make such a politically maladroit name selection given the Democratic Party identification of Stephen A. Douglas vis-à-vis the prominent Republican Party affiliations of Secretary of War Stanton and President Lincoln? The late senator Stephen A. Douglas was the The pamphlet published by Douglas in enormous quantity to slave-holding Democrat who beat Abraham broadcast his June 12, 1857, speech in Springfield, Illinois, on, among other subjects, “the Mormon problem.” The speech, Lincoln in the 1858 Illinois senate race impromptu remarks originally intended to entertain a bored after nine face-to-face debates and against grand jury, triggered a rebuttal by ­Abraham Lincoln two weeks whom the Republican Lincoln ultimately tri- later—­precursor to the 1858 Lincoln-Douglas debates—and long-lasting Mormon enmity when press reports reached Utah umphed in the presidential election of 1860. in late August 1857 as the Utah Expedition crossed the plains. Connor’s naming decision for Camp Douglas (Internet Archive) is even more astonishing when one considers October 26, 1862, Colonel Connor formally that the three U.S. Army posts in Utah Ter- announced that “pursuant to orders from ritory established by Albert Sidney Johnston department headquarters a military post is during the late 1850s prior to Camp Douglas hereby established at this camp, to be called were dubbed with political astuteness Camp Camp Douglas.” The boundaries of the camp Winfield and Camp Scott (after the general- began “at a post due north one mile distant in-chief) and Camp Floyd (in honor of the from the garrison flag-staff, and running thence then-sitting secretary of war). For Connor to west one mile, thence south two miles, thence have honored Stephen A. Douglas in this way east two miles, thence north two miles, and is akin to a scenario in which during 2003 thence west one mile, to the place of begin- General Tommy Franks would have named ning, containing 2,560 acres more or less.”30 his Baghdad headquarters “Camp Al Gore.” the establishment of Camp Douglas 167

The relatively meager collection of was the daily chaffing of a few Mormon ­Connor’s personal papers that have survived sensibilities.”33 the ravages of fire, multiple relocations, Logical as Varley’s conjecture seems, an and the passage of time offers little help in examination of Brigham Young’s correspon- understanding his naming decision. In Glory dence and the files of theDeseret News for Hunter, his 1990 biography of the general, the fall of 1862 yields no outbursts about the Brigham D. ­Madsen notes that Connor had post’s name, although there was a great deal long been an admirer of Senator Douglas and of resentment and muttering about the more even before entering the army had raised fundamental issue of its very establishment funds to finance the erection of a statue in and siting without Mormon consultation. his honor in Stockton. Madsen commented, But what of Varley’s quite accurate point “The new colonel never forgot his loyalties.” about a highly negative Mormon reaction to With respect to the naming decision, Mad- Douglas early in the Utah War? The cause of sen’s book comments without citation that this rupture was a speech given by Douglas ­Connor vetoed the desire of his men to name in Springfield, Illinois, on June 12, 1857, two the post after himself, and that his choice weeks after the launch of the Utah Expedi- of the admired Douglas’s name was “under- tion and soon after his return from Wash- standable.”31 E. B. Long’s 1981 account of ington. It was a strange speech—delivered Utah during the Civil War, The Saints and in impromptu fashion at the invitation of the Union, describes at length the initial a sitting grand jury in search of entertain- tense approach and passage of Connor’s unit ment—in which Douglas ranged through through Salt Lake City to the site of Camp three of the most volatile subjects of the day: Douglas but is mute on why the post was so the Supreme Court’s Dred Scott decision, named, as was Major Fred B. Rogers’s 1938 “bleeding” Kansas, and Utah affairs. When study Soldiers of the Overland.32 it came to Mormon matters, Douglas may In his 1989 book Brigham and the Briga- have been stimulated by bitter private inputs dier, James F. Varley discerns a motivation from recently resigned Utah associate justice very different from Madsen’s belief that W. W. Drummond of Illinois, his constituent, Connor intended simply to honor the late as well as by the sting of Republican efforts to Senator Douglas. Noting the uneven nature portray Douglas’s pet doctrine of popular sov- of relations between Douglas and the Mor- ereignty (local choice) as a de facto defense mons during their Illinois years and the of polygamy, if not slavery, in the territories. fact that Mormon leaders were “incensed” After reciting the then-current litany of accu- by an anti-Mormon speech that Douglas sations against Utah’s Mormons—principally had given at the very beginning of the Utah disloyalty and un-American backgrounds and War, Varley speculates without supporting tendencies—Senator Douglas’s Springfield documentation that “the choice of names speech advocated the repeal of Utah’s organic was undoubtedly a deliberate jab by Colonel act and therefore her territorial obliteration. Connor at the Mormons. . . . Patrick Connor For the remedy, Douglas used graphic, surgi- thus could hardly have chosen a better name cal imagery: “When the authentic evidence than Douglas for his new post if his object shall arrive, if it shall establish the facts which 168 Kenneth L. Alford and William P. MacKinnon

get into the [presidential] chair of State, and that is what he is after: he will try to accom- plish that, if he goes to hell the next day; but he will not go into the chair of State; he will go to hell.”35 Even with the passage of years, Brigham Young continued to brood over what he viewed as Senator Douglas’s betrayal. In May 1861, he wrote a caustic, mocking unpublished letter to a gravely ill Douglas reminding him of his 1857 Springfield speech as well as of his role in the disruption of the Union then so violently in progress. With Douglas’s failed 1860 presidential bid and Joseph Smith’s apocalyptic 1843 proph- ecy about Douglas’s political fate in mind, President Young closed, “Do you not begin to realize that the prediction of the Prophet Joseph Smith, personally delivered to you, has been and is being literally fulfilled upon your head? Why have you barked with the dogs, except to prove that you were a dog with them?”36 The velvet glove which Major General Henry W. Halleck (1815–72) served for almost two years as general in chief of all U.S. armies. (Library of Congress) Brigham Young had earlier used in dealing with Douglas as chairman of the U.S. Sen- are believed to exist, it will become the duty ate’s Committee on the Territories was off. of Congress to apply the knife and cut out Within a month—even before receiving this this loathsome disgusting ulcer. [Applause.] letter—Stephen A. Douglas lay dead in Chi- No temporizing policy—no half-way mea- cago, with Fort Sumter in Confederate hands sure will then answer.”34 and Patrick Edward Connor of Stockton, With this political betrayal and provoca- California, about to join the . tive language, Douglas was immediately Shortly after Senator Douglas’s death, a assigned to a place in the LDS pantheon New York Times correspondent reported from of Utah War villains, second only to Judge Salt Lake City that “last Wednesday the Pony Drummond, and he remains there. In the [Express] told us of the death of Senator midst of the Utah War, First Counselor Douglas. The Mormon portion of the com- Heber C. Kimball stated publicly: “Many of munity entertain certain hard recollections you have sustained Judge Douglas as being of the Senator, on account of his ‘loathsome a true friend to this people; and he is just ulcer’ recommendations. So there are no flags as big a damned rascal as ever walked, and at half mast, no mourning appears, no tears always has been. He has taken a course to are shed, no tokens of respect for the memory the establishment of Camp Douglas 169

Camp Douglas (later designated Fort Douglas) shown in the busy 1860s. Later the post morphed from an installation for the regular army into the headquarters for the Utah National Guard, a POW camp, a troop processing/training base, Olympic Village for the 2002 Winter Games, and housing for the University of Utah. (Fort Douglas Military Museum) of the illustrious Illinoisan are visible, though soldiers from Salt Lake City to Fort Bridger, an old neighbor in Nauvoo days.”37 Utah Territory, presumably because of that post’s proximity to the Overland Trail.39 As a Tensions Begin compromise, Connor was ordered to detach Four days after Colonel Connor officially one or two companies from his command christened Camp Douglas, Brigham Young to occupy Fort Bridger. Echoing Colonel complained that “right in the time of war there Connor’s anti-Mormon sentiments, General could not be a greater insult offered” than the Wright informed his superiors in Washing- federal government sending another army to ton, DC, “Without entering into details I Utah. Strangely, Young suggested that with am well convinced that prudential consid- Connor’s selection of the site for Camp Doug- erations demand the presence of a force in las overlooking Salt Lake City, “they are in the that country [Salt Lake] strong enough to best place they can be in for doing the least look down any opposition.”40 Utah governor injury. . . . Here they cannot do much hurt.” Stephen S. Harding also recommended that He also quoted an associate as recently having Colonel Connor’s command remain at Camp said, “We are praying all the time for the Lord Douglas: “I have not a doubt but that it will to make fools of them.”38 be the last time that U.S. soldiers will have the In the months following the establish- privilege of entering this Territory peaceably ment and naming of Camp Douglas, the if Colonel Connor is now ordered away. I do Overland Mail Company, the Post Office not say that Mormons would meet our troops Department, and Department of the Inte- openly in such an attempt, although there are rior all urged Connor’­ s superiors, including strong reasons for believing that they would, General Henry W. Halleck (President Lin- yet I have no doubt but the Indians would be coln’s general in chief), to move Connor’s encouraged to do so, and all possible succor 170 Kenneth L. Alford and William P. MacKinnon would be given them by the [Mormon] pow- more plentiful than blackberries in this Ter- ers here. . . . The base of operations should ritory.”45 Businesses, some of a questionable be here. . . . In the [proposed] withdrawal nature, also began to spring up around the of the troops the General Government vir- borders of the camp, and as the New York Times tually abandons her sovereignty over this reported, “It is really too much to suppose that Territory.”41 every officer and private is entirely unimpress- The army’s late arrival in 1862 required it ible when Bacchus and Venus hang out their to work hard throughout the winter building colors. . . . Col. Connor, at a dress parade temporary facilities at the new camp. By Feb- on Monday, declared, by special order, that ruary 1863, Colonel Connor reported that his the military reserve [reservation] connected troops had built thirteen small officers’ quar- with the post above-named, was extended to ters, a guard house, a bake house, a commis- embrace an area of four miles square.”46 sary, quartermaster offices, stores, stables, a There were apparently few, if any, discus- blacksmith shop, and a hospital. The enlisted sions between Colonel Connor and Salt Lake soldiers lived in “temporary shelters of tents civic authorities regarding either the original placed over excavations four feet deep, with location or expanded dimensions of Camp good stone and adobe fireplace.”42 Douglas. Much of the newly extended camp Camp Douglas proved to be a source of boundaries were within the corporate limits of welcome income for many civilian residents. Salt Lake City—then being challenged by the While many supply items were received from Interior Department’s General Land Office— the States, the military purchased tons of which undoubtedly did not sit well with city locally produced hay, barley, oats, potatoes, authorities, but there was little they could and cattle, among other products. In accor- do. Other problems arose during the next dance with Colonel Connor’s strong Unionist few months as the city and camp struggled to views, all contractors supplying items to Camp accommodate each other. Camp Douglas was Douglas were “required to take the oath of just six months old when a grand jury of the allegiance to the United States Government,”43 U.S. District Court for the Third Judicial Dis- to which Brigham Young reportedly replied, “I trict of Utah Territory (with Latter-day Saint hope the brethren will keep their families from Apostles George A. Smith and Franklin D. that camp [Douglas]. . . . Let them [soldiers] Richards serving as the foreman and a jury come and say, ‘Will you sell me a bushel of member, respectively) was empanelled in Salt potatoes?’ Then come[s] the answer, ‘Do you Lake City to consider Camp Douglas’s “noto- want me to take the oath of allegiance? If you riously offensive or . . . obnoxious and revolt- do, go to hell for your potatoes.’”44 ing” water usage practices. The grand jury Soldiers found Salt Lake City the obvious declared that Camp Douglas was abusing Red location to spend their pay. In December 1862, Butte Creek—the primary water supply for the army “disbursed among them the snug at least three thousand downstream Salt Lake sum of $74,000, so that they can now rejoice City residents. Soldiers were accused of hav- in being paid up. . . . The shopkeepers of this ing “placed obstructions in the stream; [hav- city are doing a heavy business. The stores are ing] built privies on or close to one of said thronged most of the day, and ‘greenbacks’ are streams of water, and in divers other ways the establishment of Camp Douglas 171 have the said troops and those [civilians] fol- interaction between two strong person- lowing them . . . fouled the water thereof, and alities—Brigham Young and Patrick Connor. rendered it extremely filthy and nauseous, to Connor was seen by himself and many others the great inconvenience of the people of the as a true patriot. A self-made Irish immigrant, said city, and deleterious to their health.”47 he voluntarily left his family and a very com- The army also prevented residents from tak- fortable life in California to serve his nation. ing their livestock up Red Butte Canyon to Brigham Young’s feelings regarding soldiers graze during the summer months. being sent again to Utah might be summed up in the opening words of the proclamation Frc i tion Between he issued to the “Citizens of Utah” in declar- Church and State ing martial law five years earlier, on Septem- Economic tensions were exacerbated ber 15, 1857: by historical and philosophical differences between the Church and the U.S. govern- For the last twenty-five years we have ment. Relations between the two parties had trusted officials of the government, been mixed since the Church’s founding in from constables and justices to judges, 1830. Latter-day Saints viewed themselves governors and presidents, only to be as loyal Americans with a firm dedication to scorned, held in derision, insulted and and belief in the Constitution of the United betrayed. Our houses have been plun- States. Several federal actions, though, were dered and then burned, our fields laid not viewed favorably by the Saints. With a waste, our principal men butchered likely eye to President Van Buren’s unwilling- while under the pledged faith of the ness to protect Mormons in Missouri and government for their safety, and our President Polk’s recruitment of the Mormon families driven from their homes to Battalion in 1846, a March 1863 article in find that shelter in the barren wilder- the Deseret News proclaimed, “Ever since we ness and that protection among hostile as a people were driven from our homes in savages, which were denied them in Illinois; traversed an almost trackless desert the boasted abodes of christianity and and settled in these distant valleys; a constant civilization. effort has been made by wicked and design- The Constitution of our common ing men to disturb our peace and interfere country guarantees unto us all that we with those religious rights secured to us by do now, or have ever claimed. If the con- the Federal Constitution. We have neither stitutional rights which pertain unto us time, space, nor inclination to review the as American citizens were extended to wrongs and insults that our bodies, and we Utah, according to the spirit and mean- as a people have suffered. They are all mat- ing thereof, and fairly and impartially ters of history; delineating them will present administered, it is all that we could ask, one of the darkest pages ever recorded of any all that we have ever asked.49 religious people.”48 The early history of Camp Douglas may As he had done during the Utah War, be viewed, in large measure, through the Brigham Young sought during the 1860s to 172 Kenneth L. Alford and William P. MacKinnon

demonstrate his loyalty to the Constitution, reoccupy Fort Crittenden or some point although that loyalty rarely extended to remote from the city, but after mature consid- federal officials charged with administering eration I came to the conclusion that the site the government that sprang from it. When of the present camp was the most eligible for the transcontinental telegraph reached Salt the accomplishment of the objects in view. It Lake City in October 1861, for example, one is a commanding position, looking down on of the first messages sent by Brigham Young the city, and hence has been dreaded by the affirmed that “Utah has not seceded, but is Mormon chief.”52 firm for the Constitution and laws of our Colonel Connor saw it as his responsibil- once happy country.”50 ity to do something about the Mormons. As Brigham Young had little early as September 1862, patience for General Connor. his official reports began to Discussing the army’s pres- include complaints about ence in Salt Lake City, Young Mormons and Mormonism. once observed in a report to According to Connor, Mor- Utah’s Legislative Assembly mons were “a community of that “there is not one soul traitors, murderers, fanatics, of them [Camp Douglas sol- and whores”53 who were diers] that I would not take “composed chiefly of the into my house if they were very lowest class of foreign- perishing in the street,” and ers and aliens . . . , hesitat- then he added “even Gen. ing at the commission of no Connor.” He reportedly con- crime.”54 He believed Mor- tinued, “I do not know the mons permitted an “unholy,

man [Connor]; as a citizen Brigham Young, former governor and de blasphemous, and unnatu- I have nothing against him, facto ruler of Utah Territory when ­Connor ral institution”55 and that “if he wants to kill the truth, and the California Volunteers arrived. the crimes and designs of Offended by their unannounced arrival, and sacrifice every virtue Young considered them an unwanted, this people were known and there is upon the earth that threatening alien presence in Utah’s midst understood by the people and refused to countenance further recruit- God has established, that is ing for the Union Army. (Photo by Charles of the United States as I what makes me hate him. William Carter, Harvard Art Museum) understand and know them, He is nothing to me as a it would cause such a burst business man. . . . But as an individual I have of indignation as would result in the utter not the least feeling against him.”51 The clash annihilation of this whole people. . . . The of temperament between Young and Connor sooner we are rid of the evil, and the nation of was mutual—neither of them made much of the stigma [of Mormonism], the better it will an effort to disguise their dislike and distrust be for us. . . . Individually I would prefer to of the other. serve in another field. At the same time there Colonel Connor’s superior­, General is much to do here, and it would give me great Wright, reported, “Brigham Young was pleasure to contribute my humble services to exceedingly anxious that the troops should blot out this stigma on our national honor.”56 the establishment of Camp Douglas 173

It was not just the religious tenets of with the people.” To accomplish this end, he Mormonism that bothered Connor. He “considered the discovery of gold, silver, and saw Mormons as “disloyal almost to a man, other valuable minerals in the Territory of the and treason, if not openly preached, [was] highest importance,” and he “instructed com- covertly encouraged.”57 In Connor’s eyes, “the manders of posts and detachments to permit so-called President Young” was “engaged in the men of their commands to prospect the mounting cannon for the purpose of resist- country in the vicinity of their respective posts, ing the Government.”58 He reported that the whenever such course would not interfere Mormons were “hard at work making car- with their military duties, and to furnish every tridges” and that Brigham Young had placed a proper facility for the discovery and opening “guard of 300 men” at his home with which, of mines of gold, silver, and other minerals.”63 from Connor’s perspective, he could attempt Connor, who is recognized today as the “father to resist federal authority.59 of Utah mining,”64 believed that by encourag- Camp Douglas was a thorn in Brigham ing “gentiles” (non-Mormons) to settle and Young’s side, and Connor knew it. In Decem- mine in Utah, “the Mormon question [would] ber 1862 Connor reported, “My present posi- at an early day be finally settled by peaceable tion [at Camp Douglas] was selected for its means, without the increased expenditure of availability, and commanding as it does not a dollar by Government.”65 His belief in this only all the avenues to but even the town itself, policy was so strong that by spring 1864, he it is an important one, and I am not surprised directed some of his subordinate commanders that Brigham Young considers its occupancy to “devote most of [their] attention” to the dis- dangerous to his interests.”60 Connor’s view covery of new mines.66 In a sense, Connor was was that “Mormonism as preached and prac- filling a vacuum, given Brigham Young’s well- ticed in this Territory is not only subversive of known hostility to mining as an inappropriate morals, in conflict with the civilization of the activity for Latter-day Saints. present age, and oppressive on the people, but The military blamed increasing tensions also deeply and boldly in contravention of the with Salt Lake inhabitants on “the open decla- laws and best interests of the nation”; therefore, rations of hostility to the Government on the he sought “by every proper means in my power part of their public men, and their bold, con- to arrest its progress and prevent its spread.”61 tinued, and unceasing teachings of disloyalty” He initially believed there were but two ways to which Patrick Connor stated “time and again resolve the problems and influence of Mormon- tended to produce excitements leading to col- ism: “First, by dividing the Territory into four lision, which have only been avoided by the parts and adding the parts to the four adjoining most temperate and moderate course of the Territories; second, by declaring martial law.”62 officers and men of my command.”67 By dividing the territory, he hoped to weaken March 1863 was a particularly tense both Brigham Young and Salt Lake City’s influ- period in the relationship between Salt Lake ence on the surrounding regions. City and Camp Douglas. Several events and A few months later, he came to see a beliefs contributed to the heightening of ten- third way—“inviting into the Territory large sions—chief among them was concern that numbers of Gentiles to live among and dwell the army was planning to arrest Brigham 174 Kenneth L. Alford and William P. MacKinnon

Young.68 Colonel Connor became alarmed What can we do? We can serve on March 3 and again on March 4 when God, and mind our own business; “Brigham caused to be removed from the keep our powder dry, and be prepared Territorial arsenal to his residence all the for every emergency to which we may ordnance and ordnance stores, and placed a be exposed, and sustain the civil law to large body of armed men in his yard, which which we are subject. . . . is inclosed with a high stone wall.”69 Con- Now, as we are accused of seces- nor was uncertain whether Young’s actions sion, my counsel to this congregation and intent were defensive or offensive. On is to secede, what from? From the March 8, Brigham Young spoke in the Taber- Constitution of the United States? No. nacle and discussed the loyalty of the Saints, From the institutions of our country? relations with the federal government, the No. Well then, what from? From sin Civil War, and Camp Douglas: and the practice thereof. That is my counsel to this congregation and to the But if the Government of the United whole world.70 States should now ask for a battalion of men to fight in the present battle-fields On March 9, Colonel Connor reported of the nation, while there is a camp of that Brigham Young “raised the national flag soldiers from abroad located within the over his residence for the first time I am told corporate limits of this city, I would not since his arrival in the Territory, but not, how- ask one man to go; I would see them ever, from motives of patriotism or for any in hell first. What was the result a year loyal purpose, but as a signal to his people ago, when our then Governor . . . called to assemble armed, which they immediately for men to go and guard the mail route? did, to the number of about 1,500.”71 The Were they promptly on hand? Yes, and following day, Connor reported that Brigham when President Lincoln wrote to me Young and the Mormons “are determined to requesting me to fit out one hundred have trouble, and are trying to provoke me to men to guard the mail route, we at once bring it on, but they will fail.”72 enlisted the one hundred men for ninety Tension in the city continued to increase days. On Monday evening I received when Brigham Young was arrested on the instruction, and on Wednesday March 10 under the 1862 antibigamy law afternoon that hundred men were mus- (Morrill Act) and quickly released on a two- tered into service and encamped ready thousand-dollar bond.73 On March 12, the for moving. But all this does not prove flag at Brigham Young’s residence was raised any loyalty to political tyrants. again, causing 1,500 Mormon militia mem- We guarded the mail route. . . . We bers to assemble. As before, the unofficial do not need any soldiers here from any militia was dismissed, but Latter-day Saint other States or Territories to perform guards patrolled the city each night. Connor that service, neither does the Govern- clearly recognized the friction that existed ment, as they would know if they were but apparently felt he was not responsible for wise. . . . it. He notified General Wright that the establishment of Camp Douglas 175

the only excuse his adherents give for conduct and brilliant victory on Bear River” over this extraordinary proceeding is that the local Indian population.78 By the end of the he feared I would arrest him for utter- month, General Wright notified Washington, ing treasonable language. . . . There DC, that “although the excitement at Great Salt has been nothing in my conduct or Lake City, brought about by the treasonable language which could be construed acts of Brigham Young and his adherents, has so as to induce that belief. . . . Since somewhat subsided, yet I am fully satisfied that my arrival the people of the Territory they only wait for a favorable opportunity to have been treated kindly and courte- strike a blow against the Union.”79 ously by both my officers and men, Continuing distrust and tensions between who have never given one of them Salt Lake residents and soldiers caused Gen- cause for complaint, which the people eral Wright to do a surprising about-face freely acknowledge. But notwithstand- when he informed army headquarters during ing this, the courtesy we have given is July 1863 that he was seriously considering returned with abuse. They rail at us “the propriety of removing the troops from in their sermons in which we are also the immediate vicinity of Great Salt Lake classed with cutthroats and gamblers, City to the old position at Camp Floyd. . . . It our Government cursed and vilified in would obviate the irritations and complaints their public speeches and meetings.74 which are constantly arising between the sol- diers and citizens.” The district’s headquarters While noting that his command was “in no would remain in Salt Lake City even if the immediate danger,” he warned, “If the present soldiers were relocated, and no plans were preparations of the Mormons should continue entertained regarding the complete removal I will be compelled for the preservation of of soldiers from Utah Territory. According to my command to strike at the heads of the Wright, “The presence of the force now there church. . . . If I remain in my present posi- is indispensable for the protection of the tion (although a strong one) for them to attack Overland Mail Route and the general safety me, I am lost, as they have about 5,000 men of the country.”80 capable of bearing arms and cannon of heavier That same day, July 31, Wright notified caliber than mine. . . . I will do nothing rashly Connor that he was contemplating reoccupy- or hastily, and my intercourse with them will ing Fort Crittenden and ordered Connor “to be, as heretofore, courteous and firm.”75 make immediate preparations to this end. . . . After hearing of the increased tensions in Advise the general by telegraph . . . when the Salt Lake City, General Wright stepped back command at Camp Douglas can be moved to from his own anti-Mormonism and admon- Fort Crittenden.”81 Any response to this order ished Colonel Connor to “be prudent and cau- from General Connor has apparently been tious. Hold your troops well in hand. A day of lost, but something caused General Wright to retribution will come.”76 On March 29, 1863, change his mind. On August 19, General Con- with the approval of Edwin M. Stanton,77 Sec- nor received new orders “to the extent that retary of War, Patrick Connor was promoted if, in your judgment, the withdrawal of the from colonel to brigadier general for his “heroic troops from Camp Douglas would produce an 176 Kenneth L. Alford and William P. MacKinnon

impression on the minds of the Mormons that however, from anything that has been the removal was in consequence of disappro- published, that there have been any bation of your course while in command, or new or menacing developments of late, in any manner injurious to the interests of the or that things are in any worse condi- Government, you will retain Camp Douglas as tion than that in which they have been your principal station”—which he did.82 for the last eighteen or twenty years. Tension and misunderstanding between Is it necessary for the government the Mormons and the military continued to take any action in the premises? throughout the Civil War. In August 1863, Utah’s somewhat more sympathetic new Camp Douglas governor, James D. Doty, noted that “many after the Civil War of those difficulties arise from the mistaken In the years following the Civil War, rela- notion that the interests of this people tions between Camp Douglas and Salt Lake and those of the Government are at vari- City gradually softened from antagonism to ance. I think they are not.”83 The Latter-day grudging acceptance and finally to an embrace. Saint perspective after the war ended was In the space of a few short years, Camp Doug- adequately summarized in a correspondent’s las became an important and uncontroversial November 1865 New York Times report: part of Salt Lake City. Reflecting a personal example of the widespread change of attitude As to the graver matters of disloyalty that occurred, General Patrick Connor left and threatened difficulties, we may say his family, returned to Salt Lake City in the that such accusations against the Mor- later years of his life, and lived there until his mons are not new, and perhaps are not death on December 16, 1891, when, as he now, any more than formerly, altogether had requested, he was buried in the military without foundation. There may be two cemetery at Fort Douglas.84 reasons for this—firstly, because more In 1878, the year after Brigham Young’s than half of the population of Utah con- death, Camp Douglas was officially renamed sists of recent emigrants of foreign birth, Fort Douglas and designated as an army gathered from all the lands under the regimental post. Soldiers from Fort Douglas sun, and from all the islands fixed in the played a contributing role in American his- sea; and secondly, because the long and tory from the Civil War through the Korean terrible persecutions of the Mormons in War. Prisoners of war were housed at Fort Illinois and Missouri in the early days Douglas during both World War I and World of the Church, have left behind them War II. The fort was officially closed in 1991, bitter memories of the power that failed although a small section of the original to afford protection. Then, again, there grounds continued to support elements of have always been annoying quarrels the Utah National Guard and Army Reserve in progress with the Mormons, which for several years. During the 2002 Salt Lake reached the very verge of war eight years Winter Olympic games, part of Fort Doug- ago, and the embers of which have been las—now an integral part of the University smouldering ever since. We do not see, of Utah—was used as the Olympic Village, the establishment of Camp Douglas 177 housing visiting athletes from many conti- of federal forces in their midst and enjoyed nents. Visitors to Fort Douglas today can tour the economic benefits that resulted from the a military museum and several historic build- army’s presence. The local citizens recognized ings that help preserve its historic past. that most of the soldiers were simply trying Patrick Connor deliberately established to serve their country at the territorial out- Camp Douglas in the foothills above Salt post to which they had been assigned, and Lake City so that his forces could dominate soldiers stationed at Camp Douglas learned and command the city below and probably that the local residents were people who had named the post to rub salt into the civil- much in common with them. Their post is affairs wound that resulted. During the Civil now viewed as a collection of quaint Victo- War, relations between the city and the sol- rian buildings owned by a university; the diers were often marked by mutual mistrust origins of its name are a cipher rather than and misunderstanding. Over time, though, a continuing source of Mormon bitterness Salt Lake residents came to accept the idea about a long-dead Illinois politician.

Kenneth L. Alford is an associate professor of Church history and doctrine at Brigham Young University. William P. MacKinnon is an independent historian in Montecito, California.

Notes Parts of this chapter were previously published in Salt Lake City: The Place Which God Prepared (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, 2011) and are used by permission.

1. P. Edw. Connor to Lieut. Col. R. C. Drum, March 15, 1958); David L. Bigler and Will Bagley, The Mormon 1863, in The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Rebellion: America’s First Civil War, 1857–1858 (Nor- Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, man, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 2011); or series 1, vol. 50, pt. 2 (Washington, DC: Govern- Norman F. Furniss, The Mormon Conflict: 1850–1859 ment Printing Office, 1897), 371 (hereafter cited as (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1960). WOTR2). 4. Since Utah’s principal city was styled Great Salt Lake 2. Orson Hyde, in Journal of Discourses (London: City until an official name change in 1868, that Latter-day Saints Book Depot, 1854–86), 6:12; name is used here in documents, but for purposes Brigham Young to Thomas L. Kane, September 12, of simplicity, the name Salt Lake City is used in the 1857, Brigham Young Collection, Church History narrative. Library, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day 5. Fort Crittenden was also sometimes referred to Saints, Salt Lake City. as Camp Crittenden. See, for example, “Report of 3. There are numerous sources for additional reading on Lieut. Anthony Ethier,” April 6, 1863, in The War of this subject. For example, see Kingdom in the West: The the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of Mormons and the , ed. Will Bagley, the Union and Confederate Armies, series 1, vol. 50, vol. 10, At Sword’s Point, Part I: A Documentary History pt. 1 (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, of the Utah War to 1858, ed. William P. MacKinnon 1897), 200 (hereafter cited as WOTR1). (Norman, OK: Arthur H. Clark, 2008); LeRoy R. 6. “The Secession Rebellion,” New York Times, May 24, Hafen and Ann W. Hafen, eds., Mormon Resistance: 1861, 1. A Documentary Account of the Utah Expedition, 7. “Affairs in Utah,” New York Times, August 2, 1861, 1857–1858 (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 5. See also Thomas G. Alexander and Leonard J. 178 Kenneth L. Alford and William P. MacKinnon

Arrington, “Camp in the Sagebrush: Camp Floyd, 24. P. Edw. Connor to Maj. R. C. Drum, October 1, Utah, 1858–1861,” Utah Historical Quarterly 34 1862, in WOTR2, 143–44. (1966). 25. P. Edw. Connor to Maj. R. C. Drum, October 1, 8. Gilbert Clements to W. G. Mills, August 25, 1861. 1862, in WOTR2, 143–44. Stenhouse states, “There Mills was then serving as a missionary in England. is no truth in this.” See T. B. H. Stenhouse, The Rocky Cited in History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter- Mountain Saints (London: Ward, Lock, and Tyler, day Saints, ed. B. H. Roberts, 2nd ed. rev. (Salt Lake 1874), 602. City: Deseret Book, 1957), 4:544n17. 26. The historian B. H. Roberts reported that Colonel 9. “The Secession Rebellion,” New York Times, May 24, Philip St. George Cooke, the last commander at Fort 1861, 1. Crittenden, “presented to Brigham Young the flag 10. L. Thomas, report on measures taken to make secure staff of Camp Floyd–Fort Crittenden. . . . After the the Overland Mail Route to California, April 24, remnant of the army was departed, the flag staff was 1862, in WOTR1, 1023. removed from Fort Crittenden, and planted on the 11. L. Thomas to Brigadier-General Wright, April 8, hillcrest immediately east of the Beehive House.” But 1862, in WOTR1, 1023. Roberts did not mention the date when the actual 12. L. Thomas to Mr. Brigham Young, April 28, 1862, in removal occurred. See B. H. Roberts, A Comprehen- The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official sive History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, series Saints (Salt Lake City, Deseret News, 1930), 4:543. 3, vol. 2 (Washington, DC: Government Printing In a 1907 address to the Daughters of the Utah Pio- Office, 1899), 27 (hereafter cited asWOTR3) . neers, Hiram B. Clawson provided additional details 13. L. Thomas to Mr. Brigham Young, April 28, 1862, regarding Brigham Young’s flagpole. “One evening, in WOTR3, 27. while sitting in front of the general’s tent [at the 14. Jas. Craig to Honl. Edwin M. Stanton, August 23, Camp],” he said, “I was attracted by a beautiful flag 1862, in WOTR3, 449. and staff and I was asked by the commanding officer 15. Edwin M. Stanton to General James Craig, [Colonel St. George-Cooke], if I thought President August 24, 1862, in WOTR3, 453. Young would accept it. I assured him that he would 16. Jas. Craig to Gen. Halleck, August 25, 1862, in not only accept it, but place it on his Salt Lake home, WOTR3, 596. the ‘White House,’ and that on all national occasions 17. Richard H. Orton, ed., Records of California Men in the flag would be unfurled. They presented it; it was the War of Rebellion: 1861–1867 (Sacramento: State accepted and placed as stated.” Quoted in George D. Office, 1890), 2. Pyper, The Romance of an Old Playhouse (Salt Lake 18. Special Orders No. 115, Hdqrs. Department of the City: Seagull, 1928), 75. Pacific, San Francisco, Cal., July 5, 1862, Richard C. 27. “Affairs in Utah,” New York Times, November 15, Drum, in WOTR2, 5–6. 1862. 19. G. Wright to Brig. Gen. L. Thomas, December 15, 28. “Arrival of Col. Connor’s Command,” Deseret News, 1862, in WOTR1, 181. October 22, 1862. Harding’s appalling comments 20. P. E. Connor to Major Drum, August 5, 1862; R. C. betrayed a significant lack of communications Drum to Colonel Connor, August 5, 1862; and between the War Department and Utah’s governor, Orders No. 1, Fort Churchill, August 6, 1862, in while echoing Colonel Edmund B. Alexander’s com- WOTR2, 53–55. mand disorientation during the early stages of the 21. “Memoranda in relation to Camp Douglas, U.T. fur- Utah War. MacKinnon, At Sword’s Point, Part I, 339. nished by Gen. P. E. Connor,” quoted in Brigham D. Harding’s comments parallel President Lincoln’s Madsen, Glory Hunter: A Biography of Patrick Edward facetious exposition of his Mormon policy—if Connor (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, Brigham Young “will let me alone, I will let him 1990), 65. alone.” George H. Hubbard, “Abraham Lincoln as 22. “Affairs in Utah,” New York Times, September 7, Seen by the Mormons,” Utah Historical Quarterly 31 1862, 3. (Spring 1963): 103. 23. P. Edw. Connor to Maj. R. C. Drum, September 14, 29. “Arrival of Col. Connor’s Command,” Deseret News, 1862, in WOTR2, 119. October 22, 1862. the establishment of Camp Douglas 179

30. Orders, No. 14, Headquarters , overlooked the fact that Fort Bridger was in Utah October 26, 1862, in WOTR2, 195. until the formation of Territory in 1868. 31. Madsen, Glory Hunter, 41, 49, 71. 42. P. Edw. Connor to Lieut. Col. R. C. Drum, Febru- 32. E. B. Long, The Saints and the Union (Champaign: ary 26, 1863, in WOTR2, 326–27. University of Illinois Press, 1981); Fred B. Rogers, 43. “Affairs in Utah,” New York Times, November 23, Soldiers of the Overland (San Francisco: Grabhorn, 1862. 1938). 44. Salt Lake City schoolhouse, in Complete Discourses of 33. James F. Varley, Brigham and the Brigadier: General Brigham Young, 4:2076. Patrick Connor and His California Volunteers in Utah 45. “Affairs in Utah,” New York Times, December 21, and Along the Overland Trail (Tucson, AZ: Western 1862. Lore, 1989), 70, 71. 46. “Affairs in Utah,” New York Times, February 8, 1863. 34. Stephen A. Douglas, “Kansas, Utah, and the Dred 47. “Third District Federal Court,” Deseret News, Scott Decision,” address at State House, Springfield, April 15, 1863. Illinois, June 12, 1857. The senator’s impromptu 48. “Arrest of Brigham Young for Polygamy,” Deseret remarks immediately drew substantial national atten- News, March 11, 1863. tion in the newspapers and were rebutted formally by 49. History of the Church, 4:273. one attendee, local attorney Abraham Lincoln, who 50. “The Pacific elegraphT Line,” New York Times, Octo- spoke in the same chamber on June 26. In a sense, ber 19, 1861. these two speeches became the template, if not the 51. George D. Watt, report, legislative assembly, inspiration, for the early rounds of the famous Lin- January 23, 1865, in Complete Discourses of Brigham coln-Douglas debates of the following year. Because Young, 4:2260. of mail delays, word of Douglas’s comments about 52. G. Wright to Brig. Gen. L. Thomas, March 30, 1863, the Mormons did not reach Utah until late sum- in WOTR2, 369. mer, at which point the reaction was volcanic. See 53. P. Edw. Connor to Maj. R. C. Drum, September 14, “Comments,” editorial, Deseret News, September 2, 1862, in WOTR2, 119. 1857; MacKinnon, At Sword’s Point, Part I, 136–37; 54. P. Edw. Connor to Lieut. Col. R. C. Drum, Febru- “Stephen A. Douglas, Abraham Lincoln, and ‘The ary 19, 1863, in WOTR2, 319. Mormon Problem’: The 1857 Springfield Debate,” 55. P. Edw. Connor to Lieut. Col. R. C. Drum, Febru- unpublished paper, 44th annual conference, Mormon ary 19, 1863, in WOTR2, 319. History Association, Springfield, Illinois, May 23, 56. P. Edw. Connor to Lieut. Col. R. C. Drum, Febru- 2009; and Mary Jane Woodger, “Abraham Lincoln ary 19, 1863, in WOTR2, 319, 320. and the Mormons,” in this volume. 57. P. Edw. Connor to Lieut. Col. R. C. Drum, Febru- 35. Heber C. Kimball, discourse, August 23, 1857, in ary 19, 1863, in WOTR2, 319. Journal of Discourses (London: Latter-day Saints’ 58. P. Edw. Connor to Lieut. Col. R. C. Drum, Decem- Book Depot, 1854–86), 5:178. ber 20, 1862, in WOTR2, 257. 36. Brigham Young to Stephen A. Douglas, May 2, 1857, 59. P. Edw. Connor to Lieut. Col. R. C. Drum, March 8, Brigham Young Collection, Church History Library. 1863, in WOTR2, 342. 37. “Affairs in Utah,” New York Times, July 8, 1861, 2. 60. P. Edw. Connor to Lieut. Col. R. C. Drum, Decem- 38. Salt Lake City schoolhouse, October 30, 1862, in ber 20, 1862, in WOTR2, 257. The Complete Discourses of Brigham Young, ed. Rich- 61. P. Edw. Connor to Lieut. Col. R. C. Drum, Octo- ard S. Van Wagoner, vol. 4, 1862 to 1867 (Salt Lake ber 26, 1863, in WOTR2, 656. City: Smith-Pettit Foundation, 2009), 2076. 62. P. Edw. Connor to Lieut. Col. R. C. Drum, Febru- 39. H. W. Halleck to Brigadier-General Wright, Decem- ary 19, 1863, in WOTR2, 320. Connor’s proposal ber 9, 1862, in WOTR2, 244. for repealing Utah’s Organic Act and redistributing 40. G. Wright to Brig. Gen. L. Thomas, December 9, its territory to neighboring states and territories 1862, in WOTR2, 245. echoed suggestions debated in Congress since the 41. S. S. Harding to General G. Wright, February 16, late 1850s. So too with the suggestion of martial 1863, in WOTR2, 315. Utah’s governor here law, which General William S. Harney, the Utah 180 Kenneth L. Alford and William P. MacKinnon

Expedition’s initial commander, had sought unsuc- See Letters of Brigham Young to His Sons, ed. Dean C. cessfully in June 1857. Jessee (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1974), 88–89. 63. P. Edw. Connor to Lieut. Col. R. C. Drum, Octo- 74. P. Edw. Connor to Lieut. Col. R. C. Drum, March 15, ber 16, 1863, in WOTR2, 656–57. 1863, in WOTR2, 371. 64. “Utah: The Treasure House of the Nation,” Utah Min- 75. P. Edw. Connor to Lieut. Col. R. C. Drum, March 15, ing Association, accessed May 18, 2011, http://www 1863, in WOTR2, 372. .utahmining.org/brochure.htm. 76. G. Wright to Col. P. E. Connor, March 11, 1863, in 65. P. Edw. Connor to Lieut. Col. R. C. Drum, Octo- WOTR2, 347. ber 26, 1863, in WOTR2, 657. 77. Edwin M. Stanton to H. W. Halleck, March 29, 66. M. G. Lewis to Capt. N. Baldwin, May 11, 1864, in 1863, in WOTR1, 185. WOTR2, 846. 78. H. W. Halleck to Col. R. C. Drum, March 29, 1863, 67. P. Edw. Connor to Lieut. Col. R. C. Drum, Octo- in WOTR2, 369. The action at Bear River occurred ber 26, 1863, in WOTR2, 656. January 29, 1863, about 150 miles north of Camp 68. See Stenhouse, Rocky Mountain Saints (London: Douglas and led to the greatest loss of Indian life in Ward, Lock, and Tyler, n.d.), 422; and James F. all of the nation’s Indian wars. The army considered Varley, Brigham and the Brigadier (Tucson, AZ: West- it a legitimate military action and used the descrip- ernlore, 1989), chapter 6, for additional information tion “battle.” Connor’s biographer, Madsen, and about the “March Madness,” as Varley called it. many other historians as well as tribal descendants 69. P. Edw. Connor to Lieut. Col. R. C. Drum, March 15, use the term “massacre.” For the latest scholarship, 1863, in WOTR2, 370–71. see Harold S. Schindler, “The Bear River Massacre: 70. Brigham Young, in Journal of Discourses, 10:107, New Historical Evidence,” Utah Historical Quarterly 109, 111. 67 (Fall 1999): 300–308; and John P. Barnes, “The 71. P. Edw. Connor to Lieut. Col. R. C. Drum, March 15, Struggle to Control the Past: Commemoration, 1863, in WOTR2, 371. This may have been the first Memory, and the Bear River Massacre of 1863,” Public time that Colonel Connor or his soldiers saw the Historian 30 (February 2008): 81–104. With Colonel national flag flying at Brigham Young’s residence, but Connor personally commanding, his soldiers killed it was clearly not the first time a flag had been flown at least 224 Indians and lost only 14 soldiers. See there. See, for example, “Affairs in Utah,” New York Col. P. Edward Connor, report, February 20, 1863, Times, April 6, 1862, which reports that “the Stars in WOTR1, 184–87. By July 1864, General Connor and Stripes were flung to the breeze from Brigham’s reported, “The policy pursued toward the Indians bee-hive mansion.” has had a most happy effect. That policy, as you are 72. P. Edw. Connor to Lieut. Col. R. C. Drum, March 10, aware, involved certain and speedy punishment for 1863, in WOTR2, 344. past offenses, compelling them to sue for a suspen- 73. Andrew Jensen, Church Chronology (Salt Lake City: sion of hostilities, and on the resumption of peace, Deseret News, 1899), 69. According to historian kindness and leniency toward the redskins. They Dean C. Jessee, “The circumstances in the 1863 fully understand that honesty and peace constitute arrest of Brigham Young were as follows: Rumor of their best and safest policy.” See P. Edw. Connor to an impending arrest of President Young by a military Lieut. Col. R. C. Drum, July 1, 1864, in WOTR2, force from Camp Douglas for an alleged infringe- 887. Yet by February 1865, General Connor was ment of the anti-bigamy law of 1862 threatened a again reporting that Indians “have again returned confrontation between civilian and military forces in in increased force. The troops are insufficient to Salt Lake City. To avoid this, a ‘friendly complaint’ contend with them.” See P. E. Connor to Col. R. C. was preemptively filed against the Mormon leader Drum, February 10, 1865, in WOTR2, 1131. [in a territorial, non-federal court], charging him 79. G. Wright to Brig. Gen. L. Thomas, March 30, 1863, with violation of the anti-bigamy law. The President in WOTR2, 369. was subsequently arrested and appeared in court, 80. G. Wright to Adjutant-General U.S. Army, July 31, where his case was bound over for the next term. 1863, in WOTR2, 546. However, when the grand jury sat in 1864 it found 81. R. C. Drum to Brig. Gen. P. E. Connor, July 31, no indictment against him and he was discharged.” 1863, in WOTR2, 547, 548. the establishment of Camp Douglas 181

82. R. C. Drum to Brig. Gen. P. E. Connor, August 19, 84. “Death and Funeral of General P. E. Connor,” Deseret 1863, in WOTR2, 581. News, December 26, 1891. 83. to General [G. Wright], August 9, 1863, in WOTR2, 584.